Crunch Beat Wolf Pack, 5-4

HARTFORD — The Syracuse Crunch scored four goals in the first period Wednesday night at the XL Center, and the Wolf Pack were unable to recover, losing 5-4.

Mike Angelidis and Yanni Gourde led the way for the Crunch with two goals each. Tanner Richard had two assists.

Conor Allen had a team-high three points for Hartford, with a goal and two assists. Justin Vaive also gave the Pack a goal and an assist.

The Crunch took the lead just 16 seconds into the game when Henri Ikonen found Angelidis breaking to the back door, where he beat Hartford goalie Cedrick Desjardins for his fifth goal of the season.

The Wolf Pack's Michael Kostka answered back just 27 seconds later when he beat Syracuse goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy (16 saves) with a slap-shot over the catching glove.

A Vaive goal at 6:01 gave the Pack a 2-1 lead, as Vaive drove to the net, protecting the puck on his backhand, and shot it past Vasilevskiy before sliding into the Crunch goaltender. The goal caused a skirmish among the ten skaters on the ice and ultimately led to a roughing penalty against Vaive.

"Obviously, you never want to start a game with that many penalties in the first," said Vaive. "It's really hard to get momentum started when you get a good shift and then you put the [opposing] team right back on the power play."

The Crunch power-play unit capitalized on the call off a quick faceoff win by Jonathan Marchessault. The draw went back to Joel Vermin, who got a pass over to Gourde. Gourde then fired a slap shot to the net and past Desjardins for his sixth goal of the season.

At the 10:40 mark, Angelidis was able to finish a bouncing puck in front of the net for his second goal of the night to give the Crunch a 3-2 lead.

Richard showed some nice patience in front of the net for Syracuse when he dropped the puck to a trailing Gourde, who scored his second goal of the night to put the Crunch up 4-2 at 16:01 of the first.

The shot was the last one that Desjardins (five saves) faced, and Mackenzie Skapski (14 saves) came off the bench in relief.

"Three of their first four goals were direct results of turnovers," said Hartford coach Ken Gernander.

Vaive hit Allen with a pass in the second period that sprung him free past the Crunch defense and in one-on-one on Vasilevskiy. Allen took a straight wrist shot high on the goaltender's blocker side to notch his third goal of the year, and cut the Syracuse lead to one.

"That's probably my first career breakaway, so I knew I was shooting the whole time," Allen said.

At the 19:19 mark of the second period, J.T. Miller lined up as a defenseman for a faceoff in the Syracuse end of the rink. The draw went back to Miller, who passed it to Allen. Allen fired the puck on net, and Marek Hrivik sent the rebound to the side of the net, where Miller sneaked in to grab the puck and score on the empty net.

"[Hrivik] took a whack at it and kept the play alive, and he took a hit for it, too," said Gernander. "Those are the types of plays that multiply over the course of a 60-minute game; if you can do that, it's going to give you your best chance for success."

With four minutes gone in the third period, though, Syracuse got what turned out to be the winning goal. Luke Witkowski took a slap shot from the blue line that was tipped by Philippe Paradis and rang off the post and past Skapski to give the Crunch a 5-4 lead.

The Wolf Pack next play at Providence on Friday at 7 p.m. The next Pack home game is Saturday at 7:30 p.m. against the Bridgeport Sound Tigers.